"Airlines need to comply with consumer law" - ACCC

[ozfflyer]

Not really. Airlines make money by their planes being in the air. If a flight that takes only two hours is shceduled to take 2.5, it means the depature time for the return flight will be delayed by that extra .5 of an hour. This is wasted time. Over a full day's flying for a 737, this could add three or so hours of 'wasted' time the plane isn't flying. That's a return MEL-SYD. Too much lost revenue.

EU261 which has (argably) stricted conditions than Canada has not seen any decrease in cheap fares (at least that I have noticed). I'm getting rock bottom fares for as little as £29 for a Manchester-London-Paris flight. That inlcudes a stopover in London. £14.50 per sector including bags and drinks (BA cityflyer) is pretty unbeatable. The train is much more.

Not much good having cheap seats if you;re going to get bumped. So selling 102 insetad of 105 s probably the right answer, at least for the passenger.

schedule padding doesn't have to mean less flights per day. Might only be an issue, at slot restricted airports. Giving one example of fares not increasing is not a very good test, beside EU aviation is in trouble generally, with airlines dropping like flies. The example of dropping from selling 105 seats to 102 seats is a drop in capacity of roughly 3%. Any drop in capacity, will lead to increased average fares, if everything else remains the same.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

schedule padding doesn't have to mean less flights per day. Might only be an issue, at slot restricted airports. Giving one example of fares not increasing is not a very good test, beside EU aviation is in trouble generally, with airlines dropping like flies. The example of dropping from selling 105 seats to 102 seats is a drop in capacity of roughly 3%. Any drop in capacity, will lead to increased average fares, if everything else remains the same.

If you add 30 minutes on to every MEL-SYD (and v.v) flight for the day, the utilisation for the one airframe drops by about one return flight. That's a lot of seats the airline can't sell. And multiple that by other trunk routes.

The airfare I gave is a typical example. It's pretty much across the board. I am not seeing airfares rise in Europe for cheap leisure travel. I am also not seeing arilines dropping like flies? The 105 to 102 might be a 'on paper' drop in capacity, but not one in terms of revenue. The airline can only sell 100 seats on a 100 seat plane. The 2, 3, or 5 pax that don't get to fly all have to have their fare refunded and or, taxis, meals and hotels covered.

 

[drron]

Well 5 European airlines shut down in the first 5 months of 2019 is not really steady as she goes.

2019 in aviation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Well 5 European airlines shut down in the first 5 months of 2019 is not really steady as she goes.

2019 in aviation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I note there are a number of smaller players that have gone. And one large on (WOW). But I don't think there are any surprises there. Not sure how long Norwegian will hold out. But there is an element to WOW and Norwegian for being too ambitious in their expansion.

 

[ozfflyer]

If you add 30 minutes on to every MEL-SYD (and v.v) flight for the day, the utilisation for the one airframe drops by about one return flight. That's a lot of seats the airline can't sell. And multiple that by other trunk routes.

The airfare I gave is a typical example. It's pretty much across the board. I am not seeing airfares rise in Europe for cheap leisure travel. I am also not seeing arilines dropping like flies? The 105 to 102 might be a 'on paper' drop in capacity, but not one in terms of revenue. The airline can only sell 100 seats on a 100 seat plane. The 2, 3, or 5 pax that don't get to fly all have to have their fare refunded and or, taxis, meals and hotels covered.

no, if you add 30 mins to scheduled transit time, you can shorten the turn around time.

eg. say a route should be 2 hours, but airlines say it's 2.5 hours. Instead of 50 min turnaround, they could then say 20 min turn, so no aircraft flying time is lost.

Airlines that have gone belly up recently

MONARCH
FLYBE
PRIMERA
WOW

+ in Asia JET AIRWAYS which think were roughly about the size of Virgin Australia

to name a few

TUI & THOMAS COOK are both in trouble & look like being sold off in bits.

Why ? Few reasons, Brexit for 1, economy 2, too much capacity etc.

The no show factor, could mean some passengers get a later flight or just don't use their ticket. The point is at peak times, the airlines want their flights to be 100% full. If they only take 100 bookings for 100 seats & 5% no shows & no standby passengers, then the revenue for those 5 seats is lost forever, so airlines have to try & make up for this loss, but putting up some fares, or eg. getting rid of some of the cheapest fares.

At present, when 101 passengers turn up for 100 seats, many airlines ask for volunteers & offer them frequent flyer points or airline credit vouchers or upgrades on a later flight, anything to avoid paying out for hotels etc.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

?? Flybe is still very much alive and flying

Wow and primera had a common, possibly doomed, business model and market. With norwegian maybe following.

Turnarounds are already short, 30 mins or less for short haul. Extending to one hour won’t work. Ties up gate space, slot space, and aircraft utilisation.

 

[ozfflyer]

I note there are a number of smaller players that have gone. And one large on (WOW). But I don't think there are any surprises there. Not sure how long Norwegian will hold out. But there is an element to WOW and Norwegian for being too ambitious in their expansion.

just read an article in an aviation magazine, which basically said Wow would still be around, if they had kept to their low cost narrow body fleet.

 

[ozfflyer]

?? Flybe is still very much alive and flying

Wow and primera had a common, possibly doomed, business model and market. With norwegian maybe following.

Turnarounds are already short, 30 mins or less for short haul. Extending to one hour won’t work. Ties up gate space, slot space, and aircraft utilisation.

pretty sure FLybe went belly up & was taken over. Wow worked but they didn't stick to their business plan & tried to get too big too soon. Part of Primeras problem was A321LR were not delivered on time.

TURNAROUNDS
if timetable is padded by 30 mins, then the 50 min turnaround can be 20 mins, according to the timetable. Do you get it now ? The only thing that changes is the timetable.

Separate to turnaround times, if 30 mins added to timetable, they can take off 15 mins late & still arrive 15 mins early.

 

[OATEK]

I think Flybe is being confused with Flynbmi - it was the latter that failed early this year.

 

[ozfflyer]

I think Flybe is being confused with Flynbmi - it was the latter that failed early this year.

flybe was taken over before it folded

Flybe boss stands down after takeover by Virgin consortium

The boss of struggling low-cost airline Flybe is hanging up her wings following its sale to a consortium including Virgin Atlantic in February.

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[MEL_Traveller]

TURNAROUNDS
if timetable is padded by 30 mins, then the 50 min turnaround can be 20 mins, according to the timetable. Do you get it now ? The only thing that changes is the timetable.

So what happens when your flight lands half an hour early but there is no gate because the airline is expecting you 30 minutes later?

What happens with ATC when they have a full schedule for arrivals but all of a sudden they have half a dozen flights from Airline X arriving 30 minutes earlier than planned? (not just once, but bank after bank, day after day). Who gets priority for landing? The airline that can't keep to its schedule, or the airlines that do?

In reality, turnarounds are already scheduled for as little as 20-30 minutes. So if you pad the timetable by 30 minutes, you'd be having a 'zero' or even negative turn-around time on paper.

 

[Frequent boarder]

So what happens when your flight lands half an hour early but there is no gate because the airline is expecting you 30 minutes later?

What happens with ATC when they have a full schedule for arrivals but all of a sudden they have half a dozen flights from Airline X arriving 30 minutes earlier than planned? (not just once, but bank after bank, day after day). Who gets priority for landing? The airline that can't keep to its schedule, or the airlines that do?

In reality, turnarounds are already scheduled for as little as 20-30 minutes. So if you pad the timetable by 30 minutes, you'd be having a 'zero' or even negative turn-around time on paper.

No ozflyer is correct. Nothing changes at all except the scheduled arrival time.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

No ozflyer is correct. Nothing changes at all except the scheduled arrival time.

Where does your fleet of aircraft arriving from MEL/BNE/CBR/OOL/TSV/DRW/ADL and PER all go then they turn up half an hour ealry and there are no landing slots and no gates? Your passengers will all swap to your competitor who can fly you to SYD 30 minutes faster and have a gate to get you off and on your way to a meeting.

 

[dajop]

In reality, turnarounds are already scheduled for as little as 20-30 minutes. So if you pad the timetable by 30 minutes, you'd be having a 'zero' or even negative turn-around time on paper.

I'm with you. I actually don't understand the logic of padding the schedule so much that almost all flights will arrive early. I understand padding it such that on time performance for certain percentage of flights can be achieved. On routes like MEL-SYD, for example QF runs over 10,000 flights a year in each direction - plenty of data to come up with realistic flight schedule. Besides if you add 20 mins a flight, but take it off the turn around time, it makes absolutely no difference in terms of on time performance. Flight 1 might arrive on time (or 20 mins late without padding) , but flight 2 will almost certainly leave late, because turn around times are not realistic.

 

[drron]

Surely when the plane is ready for take off there is a flight plan in place and the arrival airport is notified and knows the time of arrival and schedules accordingly.This certainly seems to happen on AA if the plane leaves at scheduled time.When the pilot comes on the PA the arrival time is mentioned and is usually before the scheduled time.
Certainly the times on QF I have had when the airbridge is not ready is when the plane actually arrives earlier than the time stated at take off.So basically in practice it means a longer turn around time not less.In the US I believe the padding is there to improve on time performance.

 

[ozfflyer]

Where does your fleet of aircraft arriving from MEL/BNE/CBR/OOL/TSV/DRW/ADL and PER all go then they turn up half an hour ealry and there are no landing slots and no gates? Your passengers will all swap to your competitor who can fly you to SYD 30 minutes faster and have a gate to get you off and on your way to a meeting.

nothing changes except a published arrival time. Their actual arrival time & scheduled arrival time are different. SO they use the same gates as always. Do you et it now ?

 

[ozfflyer]

Surely when the plane is ready for take off there is a flight plan in place and the arrival airport is notified and knows the time of arrival and schedules accordingly.This certainly seems to happen on AA if the plane leaves at scheduled time.When the pilot comes on the PA the arrival time is mentioned and is usually before the scheduled time.
Certainly the times on QF I have had when the airbridge is not ready is when the plane actually arrives earlier than the time stated at take off.So basically in practice it means a longer turn around time not less.In the US I believe the padding is there to improve on time performance.

if actual arrive time is 12 noon, but the schedule says 1230, it makes no difference to airport/gates. The only difference is, if flight is 30 mins late, it's still, according to timetable, still on time. Might make a difference if passengers is being picked up, but no one complains when a flight arrives early, only late.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

if actual arrive time is 12 noon, but the schedule says 1230, it makes no difference to airport/gates. The only difference is, if flight is 30 mins late, it's still, according to timetable, still on time. Might make a difference if passengers is being picked up, but no one complains when a flight arrives early, only late.

it does, because the gate is still occupied by another aircraft until 1225. this means that the arriving passengers at 12 noon have to sit, waiting on the aircraft until that time.

It also means, for slot congested airports, that the 12 noon might have to circle for 30 minutes before being able to land. Also a delay for passengers.

What you are proposing is not a one off, this is half a dozen or more flights, several times a day, all arriving 30 minutes early. No airport operator is going to keep that many gates empty when they could have fee paying planes there (think of airports like LHR amd HKG where slots are a real issue).

As an airline scheduler you'd always have in mind that planes only make money when they fly. Having dozens of planes in your fleet all sitting there for 30 minutes with nothing to do is lost revenue when they could be flying.

 

[ozfflyer]

it does, because the gate is still occupied by another aircraft until 1225. this means that the arriving passengers at 12 noon have to sit, waiting on the aircraft until that time.

It also means, for slot congested airports, that the 12 noon might have to circle for 30 minutes before being able to land. Also a delay for passengers.

What you are proposing is not a one off, this is half a dozen or more flights, several times a day, all arriving 30 minutes early. No airport operator is going to keep that many gates empty when they could have fee paying planes there (think of airports like LHR amd HKG where slots are a real issue).

As an airline scheduler you'd always have in mind that planes only make money when they fly. Having dozens of planes in your fleet all sitting there for 30 minutes with nothing to do is lost revenue when they could be flying.

you don't seem to understand. Nothing has changed except a published arrival time. It makes no difference whatsoever to anything, except on time performance.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

you don't seem to understand. Nothing has changed except a published arrival time. It makes no difference whatsoever to anything, except on time performance.

So the airline publishes a later arrival time (1230 instead of 1200), but tells the airport, its gate staff and ramp staff, and ATC that it will be arriving at 12pm?

As a passenger what time to I tell my ride to pick me up?